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All posts for the month November, 2011

Maybe you’ve never had an orgasm, maybe you don’t know if you’ve had one, maybe you’ve had one but can relive it, or just maybe you’re one of the lucky ones who can orgasm at the drop of a dime. Whatever the case may be, there is always room for growth! The following link (unfortunately I can’t reproduce in this space, Jujumama don’t play lol) is Kenya K. Stevens‘ personal account of her orgasmic experiences, and sheds light on the Top Five Reasons Many Women Don’t Orgasm. You may just learn a thing or two!

Kenya describes herself as a Best Selling Author, Blogger, and Relationships Mogul among many things. Her website is dope (I’m in a fun mood;-), and any sister that supports “…millions of women in reawakening to Feminine Joy” is alright with me!

The Power of Now!!!

Cover via Amazon

In her memoir Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert writes about a friend who, whenever she sees a beautiful place, exclaims in a near panic, “It’s so beautiful here! I want to come back here someday!” “It takes all my persuasive powers,” writes Gilbert, “to try to convince her that she is already here.”

Often, we’re so trapped in thoughts of the future or the past that we forget to experience, let alone enjoy, what’s happening right now. We sip coffee and think, “This is not as good as what I had last week.” We eat a cookie and think, “I hope I don’t run out of cookies.”

Instead, relish or luxuriate in whatever you’re doing at the present moment—what psychologists call savoring. “This could be while you’re eating a pastry, taking a shower, or basking in the sun.

When people in a study took a few minutes each day to actively savor something they usually hurried through—eating a meal, drinking a cup of tea, walking to the bus—they began experiencing more joy, happiness, and other positive emotions, and fewer depressive symptoms.

Why does living in the moment make people happier—not just at the moment they’re tasting molten chocolate pooling on their tongue, but lastingly? Because most negative thoughts concern the past or the future. As Mark Twain said, “I have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.” The hallmark of depression and anxiety is catastrophizing—worrying about something that hasn’t happened yet and might not happen at all. Worry, by its very nature, means thinking about the future—and if you hoist yourself into awareness of the present moment, worrying melts away.

The flip side of worrying is ruminating, thinking bleakly about events in the past. And again, if you press your focus into the now, rumination ceases. Savoring forces you into the present, so you can’t worryabout things that aren’t there.

FYI ladies and gentlemen, our mode of consciousness can be transformed! The key to becoming free of the egoic mind, with all its consequences, is to become deeply conscious of this present moment, or, as Eckhart Tolle often calls it, “the Now.”The consequences of being in the Now may also be traced out from his book.

Connectedness – In place of separation is a two-fold connectedness. To be present is to become reconnected both with Being itself, and with all other beings. Presence is a “state of felt oneness with Being … connectedness with something immeasurable and indestructible … that is essentially you and yet is much greater than you.” That in turn enables us to enter into deeper relationships with others. “Coming from Being, you will perceive another person’s body and mind as just a screen … behind which you can feel their true reality, as you feel yours … Compassion is the awareness of a deep bond between yourself and all creatures.”

Acceptance – Rather than resisting life as it actually is in the present moment, one accepts it for what it is, without labelling or judgment. “Allowing it to be as it is … takes you beyond the mind with its resistance patterns …”

Tolle speaks not only of acceptance of what is, but also of surrender to it.This “is the simple but profound wisdom of yielding to rather than opposing the flow of life … to surrender is to accept the present moment unconditionally and without reservation.”

This may easily be misunderstood, and Tolle goes on to explain that he is not suggesting anyone should accept for evermore some unpleasant situation in life. That is mere resignation. Surrender is a purely inner phenomenon, changing our attitude so we accept how things are at this moment. Then we can act positively to change the ongoing situation, and such positive action is likely to be far more effective than if it arose out of the anger, frustration or despair of resistance.

The Joy of Being – Instead of pain there is peace, stillness and joy. Instead of loss of Being there is reconnectedness with Being. Instead of external substitutes for joy there is an inner joy which is independent of external conditions. “As soon as you honor the present moment, all unhappiness and struggle dissolve, and life begins to flow with joy and ease.” “You abide in Being — unchanging, timeless, deathless — and you are no longer dependent for fulfilment or happiness on the outer world.”

I recently read an article (posted below) that suggested that we as commoners and celebrities alike, place too much emphasis on the pregnancies of those with fame, and furthermore, that because females (humans and non-humans) have been birthing offspring since the beginning of time that somehow it is “uninteresting”. If I had written the article, I would have changed a few things around and instead suggested that we don’t put enough emphasis on pregnancies in general, therefore devaluing the immense beauty and mystique of the creation and birth of new life. It’s a sad day in our existence when we (in particular women) don’t come together to celebrate each woman that has chosen or been chosen to usher in another chance to get things right. It should not matter if the mother-to-be is the Queen of Popular Culture, or a so-and-so from a small island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. We are our sister’s keepers…

The issue arises when glory is no longer placed on the process of childbirth and rearing, but what material possessions or possible occupation the child in question will consume/assume. I’ll even go as far to say that an even bigger issue is that we try and “design” an already perfect creation, completely removing the mystery, magic, and divinity be pre-establishing the sex, eye color, skin tone, hair texture and other superficial characteristics through genetic engineering; the outcry should be over this phenomenon! Everyone, no matter who they are, should be allowed to be excited and share with as many people as they can, the joy that it is to be an expecting mother. In Beyoncé case, the platform is simply different– she had the stage at the MTV Video Music Awards! Does this make her circumstance any less important? We get wrapped up in hate and envy that we don’t stop and think that perhaps Beyoncé is gathering as much wisdom as she can from everyday people in order to bring the healthiest baby possible into this world, all while maintaining her career of choice. It’s not a crime, and yes, women do it all the time! Again, the only difference in her case is ALL OF THE LIGHTS. The fact that she is pregnant should not be less exciting, nor should she be expected to hide it to make others not in her position more comfortable…

The following video explains, depicts, and gives us an opportunity to visualize just how incredible birth is. The fact that we are still able to bring babies into this world should be enough to convince you that EVERY conception, pregnancy, and birth is a wonder. The images in the video are done with the use of extraordinary technology, but most importantly argue the point that we should honor and support each of our sisters along their journey into motherhood.

In Love and Truth,

A.K.S.

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Beyoncé’s Incredible, Miraculous Pregnancy

The hype around the superstar suggests that no one has ever had a child before.

Does Beyoncé realize that women have been carrying and birthing babies for thousands of years? More to the point, do we?

I get the fact that by now, all bets are off when it comes to celebrity motherhood — what with Erykah Badu live-tweeting her home birth and “it” girls introducing theirHavens and Sparrows to the world in People. We know all about how Gisele’s bathtub birthdidn’t hurt, and very soon we will know what Kingston, Zuma and all of the Jolie-Pitts wore for Halloween.

But I think I may have to draw the line at the continuous, wall-to-wall blitz that has become Beyoncé’s pregnancy. It may be the perfect symbol of married black love — which many a culture critic has said that we desperately need to see — writ large. It may be the ultimate marketing machine, swathed in couture as befitship-hop royalty. But the mania surrounding this biological event has gotten way out of hand.

I’m happy for you, Bey, but the joy growing inside your womb is not the blueprint, and it is not biblical. It isn’t the Visitation; nor is it the dawn of a new epoch in the human calendar. It’s a baby.

Beyoncé is all about doing things large and loud, and her August baby-bump reveal at the MTV Video Music Awards didn’t disappoint. With the rub broadcast round the world, she instantly locked down Best Gestational Red Carpet Moment Ever, setting a 8,868-tweet-per-second record that dwarfed news of the royal wedding and the killing of Osama bin Laden.

It wasn’t just another blingy pop-culture moment: That reveal was the 21st-century equivalent of a pregnant Lucille Ball shattering convention in 1953, when the childbirth episode of I Love Lucy beat out ratings for Dwight Eisenhower’s presidential inauguration the following day.

Celeb Motherhood Redefined?

Twenty years after Demi Moore’s watershed pregnancy cover for Vanity Fair, Beyoncé is making it clear that she’s ready to grab the mantle and redefine celebrity motherhood, commanding the world to feel the love inside her sequined tuxedo jacket.

“It’s a very human instinct going back centuries, this fascination with what’s really going on in pregnancy. Is she or is she not? What’s going on inside that bump?” says Ziv Eisenberg, a Yale historian who studies the history of pregnancy in modern America. “But in the last 50 years and especially the last 20, we’ve been constantly redrawing the lines and asking, what parts of the pregnant body can we consume?”

In Beyoncé’s case, the better question might be what parts can’twe consume. Last week Sasha Fetus frenzy kicked into overdrive, going far beyond the daily bump watches reserved for mere mortals named Beckham and Hudson. For one thing, Beyoncé’s bump watch has become a breast watch, with celebrity blogs tracking her changing cup size —Bey’s breasts growing overnight!– and marveling at the jaw-dropping revelation that pregnant women’s boobs swell.

It’s also become a global countdown to rival Y2K: Beyoncé’s announcement last week of her February due date sparked such balanced coverage as, “Looks like Valentine’s Day isn’t the only thing the world will be celebrating next February!” And then of course there’s the fake-bump conspiracy — a surreal story line that took a turn for the even more surreal last week, when bloggers identified Beyoncé’s womb as “collapsing” on camera as she sat for an interview on Australian TV. It must be a prosthetic! There’s a secret surrogate carrying Jay-Z’s seed!

I’ve given birth three times in my life, and while I never took maternity fashion to new heights by rockingleather shorts, I think I can speak for many a mother when I say that the contortions of a womb with a baby inside it are endless, occasionally frightening and not necessarily meant to be freeze-framed in high definition and plastered across the Internet. If you don’t already know this, you should stop watching clips of Beyoncé bending down to sit in a chair and spend some time around a pregnant woman.

A Mom-to-Be Who Knows Her Place

There are a few celebs who seem to understand that their pregnancies don’t signal the second coming. Alicia Keys’ earth mother/goddess phase fell well within the bounds of normal navel-gazing; Mariah Carey was downright cagey for months (though she’s now ready to give her twins the Barbara Walters treatment).

But you have to cross the Atlantic to find a celebrity who truly “gets” her place within the history of childbirth — a woman like Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, the former supermodel, singer, glamour icon and wife of French President Nicholas Sarkozy. The first lady of France is due any minute now.

Bruni-Sarkozy — who appeared in Woody Allen’s recent Midnight in Paris, once worked the runways for Dior and Chanel and at one point dated Mick Jagger — is no stranger to the spotlight. Today she is easily the most watched woman in France. But when she was asked about her pregnancy in a recent BBC interview, she uttered a word you’ll never hear coming out of Beyoncé’s mouth in any context, much less regarding the arrival of her firstborn: “banal.”

“There isn’t much to say,” the first lady of France told the British news service. “So many women are expecting children and giving birth, and it’s so uninteresting for French people.” The absence of self-involvement was so shocking, her comments became the anti-bombshell bombshell — with People promptly packaging the story under the blaring headline, “France Is Not Interested in My Baby.” Well, Carla, you tried.

Bruni-Sarkozy likely has her own reasons for staying low-key: At 43 she’s an older celeb mom, and she has gone on record as saying she is superstitious. There’s also the issue of her husband’s often slipping, sometimes plummeting popularity, and the role that some argue she has played in it. With 27 weeks to go as Sarkozy tries to carry a second presidential victory to term, I have to think that part of his wife’s subdued state is a political calculation.

There are cultural forces at work, too: Lately in France, it’s the mistress, not the mini-me, who has gotten the public salivating. “Carla was a scandal to begin with,” says Rosanna Hertz, professor of sociology and women’s studies at Wellesley College. “She’s [Sarkozy’s] third wife; he’s much older than she is. If anything, the baby normalizes them, and the country probably really doesn’t care.”

Still, something about Bruni-Sarkozy reminds me of the French exchange student who came to live with our family in Philadelphia one summer. I remember taking her down winding cobblestone streets and stopping at the Liberty Bell and Ben Franklin’s print shop, waiting for her to be impressed and amazed. She was neither.

She had an innate sense, as many Europeans do, that the world has been spinning for some time, and the people in it figured out this human-civilization thing several millennia ago, setting cobblestones in mortar to make roads and growing babies in utero to make people.

As breathlessly calculated by the blogosphere, Beyoncé Knowles is about 20 weeks along. For those enthralled by the mystery of what her couture caftans are hiding, I’ve got some very juicy details: Right now her baby weighs a little less than a bag of Doritos and is about the length of a banana. It is learning how to swallow, its eyebrows and eyelids are almost fully developed and it is producing meconium (otherwise known as baby’s first feces).

That exclusive scoop comes from babycenter.com, which also suggests this at 20 weeks: “Treat yourself to something nice. You’ve made it to the halfway mark, so celebrate with a little indulgence. Need some ideas?”